Well, The Night Manager Season 2 really dropped the bomb at the very last minute. A major chunk of the third episode was mostly twists and turns, which didn’t move the plot forward, but the last ten minutes just keep you on the edge of your seat. Okay, let me quickly hit you with a spoiler warning so I don’t have to keep talking in riddles. So it turns out, Jonathan Pine’s nightmares aren’t just nightmares anymore. They just got real. His arch-nemesis, Richard Onslow Roper, isn’t dead. He’s breathing, flesh and blood in front of him, and you can already imagine the shock Pine must have sensed in his bones, because we as an audience went through the same. The only question here is how did Roper survive? And more importantly, how’s Pine going to stop him? Well, I cannot hold back my excitement to talk all about it, so without any further ado, let’s jump straight into the breakdown of episode 3.
Pine Finally Gets the Shipment List
Throughout the episode, Pine had been trying to get his hands on the shipment list in the diplomatic briefcase, which Teddy’s man, Jaco Brouwer, had brought in from London. At the end of episode 2, Pine saw the briefcase in Teddy’s villa in Medellin, and had planned to look into it, but before Pine could get his hands on the briefcase, Teddy asked his loyal henchman, Viktor, to take it to his Cartagena office and hand it over to Paloma, the “guardian” of his company. So long story short, Pine devised a plan to break into Barquero Commerce’s headquarters to steal the papers, but to his disappointment, he couldn’t find them. Paloma had kept the shipment list inside a secret locker, and Pine had no idea about it, but thankfully, Pine’s new partner-in-crime and potential love interest, Roxy Bolanos, xeroxed the papers and gave them to Pine at the end of episode 3. And as suspected, the list contained a number of weapons that Teddy had imported from the UK with the help of his business partner, Mayra Cavendish, who, while selling weapons to illegal arms dealers, also worked as the chief of MI6. So, what’s next? Okay, so through these documents, Pine and his teammates, Basil Karapetian and Sally Price-Jones, would be able to prove the River House’s involvement in the illegal arms deal, but the more important question is, will that be enough to expose Cavendish and get her arrested? Well, if you ask me, then I think these MOD end-user certificates would establish Cavendish’s involvement in the deal, but we still don’t know how many other people are involved in this scandal. What if Cavendish isn’t working alone, and there are other people in the agency or the government who are on Roper’s payroll, just like in the first season? And if that turns out to be the case, then just exposing Cavendish won’t be enough. Basil has to tread carefully here, so he doesn’t end up getting killed while trying to expose the traitors and the opportunists in the agency.
Roxy Helps Pine
I know this question might be troubling you: why is Roxy helping Pine even though she knows that she will lose her life if Teddy finds out what she’s up to? Till the very end, Pine believed that she was doing business with Teddy because of money, but if she was in it for the money, why did she have a change of heart? Why did she start helping Pine? Because he threatened to have her arrested? No, that couldn’t be the only reason, right? And that was what Pine had been so confused about with Roxy, because he couldn’t figure out her real motives. Later, Teddy’s lawyer, Juan Carrascal, told Pine to ask Roxy about her father, and that was when Pine realized that Roxy’s involvement with Teddy was more personal than professional. In the end, Roxy revealed that her father was kidnapped for refusing to pay for local guerrilla protection, soon after which Roxy and her mother left for America. So what I believe might have happened is that Roxy got herself involved in Teddy’s business because she believed she would be able to exact revenge for her father. I am not very well-versed with Colombian political conflicts, but as a socialist, I’d just say that whether it’s right or left, there’s evil on both sides. And maybe it was only after picking a side that Roxy realized the mess she had gotten herself into. She had become a part of Teddy’s inner circle and couldn’t just walk out of it, which was why she started helping Pine, because he was her only hope.
Furthermore, it was quite interesting to see that The Night Manager Season 2 is continuing the tradition set by the first season, where it is the leading ladies who help our night manager to steal crucial intel. If you remember, in season 1, it was Pine’s secret love interest, Sophie Alekan, who handed him the documents that contained the list of weapons that Roper had been selling to the Hamid family. Later, it was through his second love interest, Jed Marshall, that Pine found out about the MOD certificates that the River House had arranged for Roper. And now in season 2, it was Roxy who helped Pine with the documents. And if you think I’m spending too much time on these papers, then I think it’s worth pointing out that Teddy’s following the same path as Roper to smuggle weapons into Colombia. But now that we know that Roper’s alive, and he’s the man pulling all the strings, it’s safe to assume that Roper’s up to his old tricks to revive his unfinished dreams and end what he had started.
Cavendish Finds Out About Roper’s Money
The previous episode revealed that the 300 million dollars that Pine had stolen from Roper was still lying somewhere in an offshore account. After Roper’s disappearance and a change in the management of the River House, Rex Mayhew erased all traces of this money so it couldn’t be misused. However, shortly after Mayhew’s death, his partner at the agency, Basil Karapetian, told Pine that he knew where these funds were, and they could use them to take down Teddy. Teddy needed some 20 million dollars to solve his cash flow crisis, and Pine had planned to pay him using Roper’s money to gain Teddy’s trust, but before he could do so, Cavendish found out about these funds and asked Basil to help her get access to the account. She told Basil that her tech team had found an email that Mayhew had sent nine years ago to someone named Andrew Birch. If you don’t remember who Andrew was, then it was Pine’s identity Roper had created for his shell company so he could sell weapons to Omar Barghati. Nevertheless, if you think it was Cavendish’s team that found out about all this through Mayhew’s account, then you’d be wrong. I think she was lying through her teeth, and it was Roper or Teddy who told her about this Luxembourg bank account and asked her to retrieve the money for them.
So after Cavendish found out about the secret bank account, Basil had to cancel the transaction he had made to Teddy’s company so he could show Cavendish that the funds hadn’t been touched and were lying in the offshore account as is. However, Basil knew that Pine was counting on him for this money, because if he failed to pay Teddy, then Teddy wouldn’t think twice before killing him, so in order to help his friend out, Basil concocted a plan to trick Cavendish. He told her that he could make a dummy transaction to a shadow ops account, which could help him trace the account, but Cavendish didn’t give him confirmation immediately. It’s likely that she contacted Teddy or Roper before making any decisions, and her paymasters approved the plan; she gave a heads-up to Basil to make the transaction. By the way, we still don’t know how much information Teddy, Cavendish, and Roper are sharing with each other, because if all three of them are really vocal, then it shouldn’t take them much time to figure out who Matthew Ellis is and how he’s trying to stop them from fulfilling their sinister objectives. Also, I think Cavendish should really question Basil about how he found out about this offshore account so quickly. I mean, I know he’s good, but the manner in which he tracked the funds might look suspicious to anyone.
Roper Faked His Death
When Pine broke into Teddy’s office to take a look inside the briefcase, Teddy also walked into the locker room, because of which Pine couldn’t look around and had to quickly hide inside the room. It was during this time that Pine heard Teddy talking to someone on call asking them to connect him to Gilberto Paredes Hanson, but he wasn’t there at the moment. As per their conversation, Teddy wanted Hanson’s permission to get rid of public prosecutor Alejandro Gualteros, who had impounded his shipment and frozen all his company’s bank accounts. But before taking any crucial steps, Teddy wanted to get approval from Hanson and his other partners, General Horacio Sanchez and politician Jose Cabrera. Therefore, in order to discuss the matter in detail, Teddy arranged a meeting at a hilltop restaurant near Hanson’s mansion. As soon as Pine heard that name, he asked Sally to locate the man, but to Pine’s surprise, the real Hanson died in a helicopter accident 17 years ago, which meant whoever Teddy was meeting on the hilltop was someone living under the identity of Hanson, and you already know who’s the master of disguise here. It’s none other than Richard Onslow Roper. Pine sneaked into this hilltop restaurant to have a look at Hanson, only to realize that his worst fears had come to life.
Like Pine, we all have this question in mind: how did Roper survive? How did he fake his death? In season 1’s ending, Roper was taken away by Omar Barghati and his partner, Kouyami, because Roper failed to deliver the weapons or return their money. And since then, no one had heard from him again, until four years later, when Angela Burr received intel about Roper’s corpse lying somewhere in Syria. Yes, this was the flashback sequence we saw in the very first episode of season 2, which confirmed Roper’s death, but as it turned out, Roper played them all. It’s likely that Roper had cracked a deal and handed over some money to Barghati and Kouyami to let him go. Or maybe Roper’s private army managed to locate him and rescue him from his captors. But whatever the case might be, Roper didn’t want the world to find out the truth about his existence and therefore planted a fake body in Syria to convince Burr and Pine that he was dead because, as they say, “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” It’s likely that after his disappearance some 9 years ago, Roper didn’t bother contacting his son, Daniel, or his ex-girlfriend, Jed, and started a new life as Gilberto Hanson in Medellin. He chose Colombia because he had allegedly been doing business in the country in the 1990s, and even had a son there, Teddy. It’s likely that after being betrayed by Jonathan Pine, Roper refused to put his trust in outsiders, and might have believed that his own blood would not betray him, which led him to prepare Teddy to become the face of his operation, the same way he had used Andrew Birch to lead his shell company for his arms trade. But we know that Teddy isn’t the perfect son either. He is haunted by his past and struggles to put a leash on his demons, which I think is our clue that Teddy may help Pine bring down Roper for the second time. I mean, it’s just a hunch for now. But I think Roper will learn the lesson that, when you are an evil man, neither family nor friends can save you from your downfall. Additionally, if Roper’s alive, then does it hint at a possibility that Olivia Colman’s Angela Burr is gonna return to the show as well? Well, I am gonna keep my fingers crossed on that one.
Teddy Is Making an Army
I am going to be honest with you here: so far, Teddy has been the most mysterious character of this season. Coming from a troubled childhood, he grew up surrounded by poverty, dirt, and violence. It seems like even being Richard Roper’s son didn’t save him from a difficult life and tragic past. His mother died at a young age while he was away in a monastery, growing up without his parents. All Teddy had was himself. He jumped into the abyss, chasing money so he could become a powerful man like his father and make him proud. I believe Roper did visit Teddy when he was young, but then he basically forgot about him, which pushed Teddy to build a life for himself by any means possible. He ran away from the monastery when he was sixteen so he could earn enough money to reach out to his father, but it was never enough. Roper was so busy with his ambitions that he neglected his illegitimate child until he found himself needing him. It could be that it was Teddy who rescued Roper from his captors and brought him to Colombia to hide from the world, and seeing Teddy’s capabilities, Roper decided to turn him into another Andrew Birch. It’s no surprise that Teddy, for better or worse, has the same goal and ambitions. I mean, we know that Teddy’s speaking Roper’s language, which makes it harder to grasp whether it’s Teddy who wants to create an army or Roper who’s feeding ideas into his head. In season 1, Roper had a private army of his own, somewhere in Istanbul, but likely after his disappearance, each soldier-for-hire went their separate way. Through Teddy, Roper had been trying to rebuild his army and, this time around, is enlisting troubled orphans from all over Colombia, just like Teddy. These kids had seen the worst the world had to offer in their lives. They had been fighting a war from a very young age and would do anything to express the angst inside their troubled head. Each of these kids is like a ticking time bomb, and when they explode, they will take the whole world down with them. They are all clones of Teddy, if I dare say so, and coincidentally, that’s what Roper wants to serve his goals. So the question here is, will Teddy ever realize how his father is exploiting him to further his own interests? Or will he forever remain a puppet at Roper’s hand, leaving Pine no other option but to take him down with Roper? Well, I guess we’ll have to just wait and find out what happens next. Also, I would love to know your thoughts and opinions on this episode, so do share your comments in the box below.
